State Watch: Heavyweight avoids weigh-in

New Jersey’s biggest special interests — as measured by the money they spend lobbying the state government — are familiar names. The Big Five of lobbyist spending are:

— N.J. Education Association (the teachers’ union), $11.2 million;

— Verizon, $1.2 million;— AFL-CIO (state and national), $794,000;

— Public Service Enterprise Group, $774,000;

— N.J. Hospital Association, $771,000.

But one major organization doesn’t make the list because it’s excluded from lobbyist disclosure laws. That would be the State of New Jersey government itself. Its “legislative liaisons” and “government relations specialists” essentially do what other lobbyists do: lobby. That is, they monitor proposed legislation and regulations and try to persuade lawmakers and regulators to accept their agencies’ point of view on them. State agencies sometimes find themselves butting heads on proposed bills and rules.

If the state government’s legislative liaisons and government relations specialists were included on the lobbyist expenditure list, they would weigh in at No. 2 among the lobbying heavy hitters — behind the big teachers union but ahead of the big communications corporation. According to a Trentonian analysis of state government payroll data, the salaries of legislative liaisons and government relations specialists total more the $1.6 million a year.

The state government itself, based on that salary figure, would rank ahead of the lobbying likes of Comcast, Exxon, GlaxoSmith Kline, GTech, Hess, JP Morgan Chase and other major corporate players, according to lobbying-expenditure disclosures they are required to file with the N.J. Election Law Enforcement Commission.

So should state agencies be required to file also? ELEC’s executive director Jeffrey Brindle says, “In my opinion, no.” The “lobbyists” on the state’s payroll are “representing a public interest, not private interests,” he says. Also, he adds, their conduct is policed by a strict code of ethics.